Summer Life:)

Audrey has hit 15 months and is loving life.  Her hair is long enough now so we have to actually do something with it so that it doesn't get in her eyes.  She is communicating more and more, although she still doesn't say much... or anything really;)  She still isn't walking, but is a pretty fast crawler.  She is into anything the boys are into and is just such a sweet and happy little girl.  She loves the attention of her brothers and would prefer to sit in your lap and cuddle to crawling off and playing alone.  She has started giving kisses and hugs which is just so cute.  She loves watching her brothers play in the pool and will readily laugh at them and clap when they jump into the pool.

We have, once again this year, developed a "Civiello family bucket list" for summer vacation.  We make the list at the beginning of summer and spend the days crossing off activities.  There is nothing huge on the list, but it helps us focus our days and weeks when we have ideas and goals of fun things to do.  They range from taking a hike to having a thumb war to telling ghost stories.  On this afternoon we crossed off "make solar oven s'mores".  We used a pizza box and "cooked" s'mores for desert.  Next we can't wait to make some english muffin pizzas for lunch;)

In other news, our garden is starting to show some signs of life and the kids are learning how to weed... pictures soon I hope!

Beach Day!

We can officially say that summer is here, now that we have spent a day at the beach.  More impressively, is how well the day went... I dare say that it was relaxing.  The kids and I met up with friends of ours and despite the fact that we were two adults to 6 kids (3 of whom were 2 or less) it was a very fun day and we stayed way longer than we have ever stayed at the beach with kids... 4 hours!  The favorite activity for the kids was jumping the waves as the tide came in. Noah really liked to be buried and was almost stepped on more than once because he was lying so still.  Audrey loved playing with her little friend Jackson and was content to lift and shut the bed on the dump truck. James and Ben also enjoyed helping to make a dam in the stream with some bigger kids. More than anything the kids listened well, were well behaved and there was minimal fighting. A great day at the beach and the kids are already asking to go back:) 

Noah's First Katahdin Hike- 2014

On Monday we took Noah for his first hike up Katahdin.  He was a real trooper and did way better than I thought he would.  We had low expectations going in and Noah really rose to the occasion and completed the hike. We parked at roaring brook and hiked to chimney pond.  We then climbed to the summit via the cathedral trail.  It was at this point we decided we could never go up cathedral with two or more children until they had longer legs because there are some pretty difficult parts when your legs aren't long enough to climb up the boulders.  At the same time, being smaller had its advantages in many places where Gabe and I were too big to squeeze through and had to take the long way around.  

We were pretty thrilled to reach the summit in just 5 hours!  Noah was doing so well in fact, that Gabe and I managed to convince ourselves to go down the Helon Taylor trail via knifes edge as it was 1 mile shorter and Noah could make it... It is safe to say that we obviously didn't think through what knifes edge looks like if you are 7 and your legs can't easily make it over the "easy" section of trail.  There were definitely times as we were all scaling the rocks where only inches of error were allowed, when Gabe and I would look at each other and think, "maybe this was a mistake".  Not from Noah's perspective because he had no clue of the challenge or danger of the trail and was having a grand time making explosion sounds every time we would get to a difficult part in the trail:) From our perspective however, we knew exactly what could happen and could see the newspaper headlines should something happen. 

Thirteen hours after we began, we reached the ranger station back at roaring brook, exhausted, but feeling very accomplished and thankful that everyone completed the climb safely.  Noah's favorite part of the day was getting to put his feet in the mountain stream at the end of the trail.  The great part is that Noah wasn't traumatized from the hike and is already asking when we will be able to hike it again.  He does add the stipulation though that the hike we did was too long and we have agreed not to make him do knifes edge again until he was a teenager and asked to do it;)  All in all it was a lovely day, perfect weather for hiking and some special time with Noah.

Jim and Liz Get Married!

Gabe and I had a wonderful "postponed 10-year anniversary" get-a-way last weekend. Last year, for our actual 10th anniversary, I am not sure we even saw each other.  Gabe was still living/working in Portland and I was in Wilton with the kids (6yo, 4yo, 21mo & 4mo) living in our new home for only a week... so we decided to celebrate our 10th anniversary a year later.  This is honestly the first time we had left all of the kids overnight and everyone did really well, including us:)

Gabe and I were fortunate to attend the wedding of Jim (Gabe's college roommate) and Liz.  They reside in Chicago, but were kind enough to hold their wedding in Brunswick at the Bowdoin Chapel. The best part about the weekend was getting to spend time and catch up with old friends from college who we haven't seen for many years!  We certainly did some relaxing and were able to eat meals in a relaxed/non-rushed environment.  However, as it turns out, it is easy to skip meals when you are not running life on a strict schedule to prevent meltdowns by your children;)  Thanks for having us Jim and Liz and hopefully it won't be so long before we all meet again!  

James Turns 5 Years Old!

This sweet boy turned 5 today!  He loves playing with legos and cars and reading books.  He is very creative and will be a great writer and story teller when he is older.  He loves to make up stories about different characters and how they would appear in his life.  Although he sometimes prefers to play alone, playing Star Wars and fighting off the bad guys is becoming a favorite past time with his brothers.  He continues to have a soft spot for Audrey and seems to share a special bond with her that gives him lots of patience with her:)  He has done very well this year at school learning lots through his classmates (and Noah's homework).  He has started swinging and swimming on his own this summer and we are excited to see how he will continue to improve as the summer progresses.  We love you James and can't wait to see how you will grow in this next year!

Father's Day 2014

The kids were pretty excited for Father's Day this year.  They couldn't wait to make pancakes and bring them to Gabe in bed.  He was, not so gently, awakened by Noah playing the kazoo and James & Ben singing. Then, everyone insisted on cutting up his pancake for him.  They gave Gabe a tshirt with Darth Vader on roller skates and a boom box... they think that it is so hilarious and want him to wear it everyday:)

After breakfast we headed to church for children's Sunday.  Noah and James got to be greeters and play in the hand bell choir.  Their favorite part was at the end of the service when the high school kids played their guitars and drums... they still haven't stopped singing "Pharaoh, pharaoh" to the tune of "Louie, Louie".  Gabe finished the day with some golf with Noah and James and steak on the grill.  All in all a great day!

James' Lego Birthday Party

James finally got to have his lego party, he was so excited!  His friends came and made/raced lego cars, created some lego mini figures, built buildings, played pin the head on the lego man, and ate cake.  He wanted a cake with a race track around the outside and mini figures building on the inside, so that is what we did.  He had a wonderful day, thank you to all who came:)

Twilight 5K- 2014

Next up on our list for this week is the Maine Cancer Foundation's Twilight 5K.  This was Noah's first 5K and he was both excited and nervous that he wouldn't be able to make it the whole way.  We have been training from our house, but he was fixated on the fact that this was only a 2.6 mile route.  I tried to reassure him that all of the hills we had to run up more than made up the difference;)

Noah had a beach day at school, then we left as soon as we could to head to Portland. It was sprinkling and not super warm, but it could have been worse.  For the actual race the rain held off and  it was a great run.  We had a bit of a snafu at the beginning because they apparently do not allow strollers to run in the race, but thankfully Jacob waited to run with us and was able to take off and run with Noah.  I followed behind trying to run/walk/weave my way between participants as I had to wait and be the last one to start.  Noah was tired, yet so proud of himself as he excitedly told me that he had run the whole way without stopping, as I came across the finish line. He finished in 31 minutes which is way faster than I thought was possible for him.  Thank you Jacob for running with him, he had a great time!!

Our team raised just under $2,000 to support the Maine Cancer Foundation which put us in 10th place for fundraising.  Wonderful for such a small team!  We all had a blast and can't wait to run again next year!!